April 23, 2010

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A giant New York-based local union is poised to vote to support California labor leader Mary Kay Henry (above) for the presidency of one of America's largest unions today, three sources familiar with the union said, dealing a stunning rebuff to Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern and his handpicked successor, Anna Burger.

With some 300,000 members -- about 15% of SEIU's total membership -- 1199 is the largest of the constituents of SEIU whose local leaders are now voting in an election that pits Burger's promise to continue SEIU's high profile role as powerhouse of Democratic Washington politics and Henry, whose backers hope that she'll defuse tensions between SEIU and other unions and return it to a more traditional role of organizing and representing members.

The election is, in traditional political terms, a choice between Burger's promise of continuity and Henry's promise of change, and change appears to have the upper hand.

Burger and Henry have been criscrossing the continent this week to woo local leaders, and Henry won another important victory yesterday when SEIU's two large canadian locals, Local 1 and Local 2, representing about 60,000 members, voted to support her.

"We believe Mary Kay Henry's determination to focus on our core mission of organizing the millions of workers in North America who have no voice at work; on healing the divisions in the labor movement and on strengthening the union itself is the best way forward for SEIU," wrote the top Canadian leaders, Sharleen Stewart and Cam Nelson, in a memo provided by a labor source.

A smaller Canadian local, SEIU-West, which represents about 12,000 members, backed Burger.

"We believe that this union should have two paths that are parallel to each other: organizing and politics," wrote SEIU-West president Barbara Cape in her own memo, provided by the same source. "After seeing the success of both of these programs in the United States, this is the direction SEIU-West is taking. We believe that we must continue to build on them for the future of our members, the union and the labour movement."

The expected move by 1199's executive board, however, shifts the largest single piece of the SEIU behind Henry, who is expected also to have the support of her own large California union, and has the backing of several other prominent national SEIU leaders, though one giant local, based in Chicago, has yet to weigh in.

Henry "has 1199. That puts her on the brink. Anna still has a very narrow path," said a source close to 1199.

Henry won 1199 despite the fact that its powerful former president, Dennis Rivera, backed a "unity slate" headed by Burger. She won over the union's mid-level leaders after its current president indicated that he would defer to their decisions -- a process that may itself be a model for a move toward more local control in the larger SEIU. 1199 has lost some of its political clout since Rivera's departure, and the lack of a political, Washington-based SEIU president may have a similar national effect.

The internal battle comes immediately on the heels of the retirement of Andy Stern, who expanded the union using unconventional tactics, including deals with management and political leaders, and carved out a role as the most prominent labor leader of the Obama era.

Stern turned SEIU into a political juggernaut, with millions of members, an activist tradition, and a willingness to spend more than $30 million electing President Obama the ultimate mark of its emergence as arguably the most important independent political force in America. Stern was a key figure in, first, putting health care atop the Democratic Party's agenda, and then urging it through Congress after some Democrats lost hope this winter.

The vote for Henry is a vote to move away from that tradition. Local leaders are supporting her despite Burger's strong Washington ties, and in the hopes of turning SEIU back into a more traditional union. Her election would likely speed the reconciliation of SEIU and the rest of the labor movement, and elevate AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka into the undisputed leadership of the labor movement.

The election would also mark historic firsts: Henry would be the first woman, and the first openly gay leader, to head one of America's largest unions.

CORRECTION: America's largest union is the National Education Association.

Reader Comments (47)

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Under Clinton and Obama, unions became an arm of the Democratic Party, doing their will instead of the will of the union members. Because of this, I'm have become determined to beat them all in November and to take the political power away from unions and their thug leaders.

This shows just how political they have become.......The SEIU is now a HEADLINE in Politico almost daily.....Mary Kay is also active in the fight for immigration reform and gay and lesbian rights. .......She is a founding member of SEIU's gay lesbian Lavender Caucus.

I find it disappointing that workers have very few reprresentatives in any organizations, let along Washington DC. For readers to post comments that some how suggest that there is something wrong for workers to have unions with a political voice, which speak for them, and fights for the rights of all workers, seems ludicrous. Unions are the only political force in the country that is comprised of workers, funded by workers, and raises a working class perspective. Who else can do this? The Democratic Party? You must be kidding me.
If you support policies that puts people before super profits, then you should support unions. Period. Any hesitation means you don't know what side you're on.

like the old saying goes "unions are for the sick, lame, and lazy". paying someone to fight your employer is no different than paying a bully at school to fight for you at afterschool or paying protection money to goons for leaving you alone. people who join unions are cowards who have no integrity or guts to stand up for themselves and prefer to pay a goon to do it for them.

Sorry you are having such problems with this clubfoot Sally, perhaps you need to go back to anti-discrimination class.
Go CA, go Henry! We absolutely need increased union membership in this country to protect workers from the CORPORATE THEOCRACY that now runs the country.

Sorry you are having such problems with this clubfoot Sally, perhaps you need to go back to anti-discrimination class.
Go CA, go Henry! We absolutely need increased union membership in this country to protect workers from the CORPORATE THEOCRACY that now runs the country.

...oops maybe the CORPs don't run the country anymore.. oh thats right we have a DEM Pres now not BUSHIE.
Here from MIKE ALLEN, Politico...
"Wall Street no longer goes to Washington to dictate terms; it goes to beg for mercy ..."

It is hard to say, but maybe the SEIU membership is sick to death of being seen as Communists and anti-American agitators. The image of SEIU thugs beating up that black conservative Tea Party member had to have played a part.

UNIONS have bankrupted California and you need to look at Greece to see the same......Other people's money keep them employed and soon the people who PAY for their HUGE benefits will no longer be able to afford them.....Unions were once needed but we have LAWS now......Still UNIONS want more and more driving States into bankruptcy........Teachers who can't even spell are sending emails to the New Jersey Governor because he want cuts and TEACHERS want raises......You can't get money from people to pay union workers anymore........Get a 401k and STOP taxing taxpayer money for your pensions!..........Pay for your OWN pensions and learn to save.....NO more money from taxpayers!

Wish in one hand, sh!t in the other see which fills up first. The long arm of the Obama Adminstration will get whomever they want. ACORN, community organizers, and the unions these are who represent the government employees which pour millions of dollars into the Democrats and Obama's coffers. When you deal in corruption, bribes, etc. like this adminstration does then at the end of day they will make the decision. Doesn't matter what any union members wants.

Posted By: Wish in one hand, sh!t in the other see which fills up first. The long arm of the Obama Adminstratio | April 23, 2010 at 11:41 AM

"Like the old saying"? What old saying about the sick, lame, and lazy? Was it some anti-worker fascist like Mussolini?
a) Having a union is like having a neighborhood crime watch, or a religion, or any number of community organizations, except that membership is defined by whether or not you work together. Workers work together (i.e. cooperate i.e. share in the responsibilities and in the resulting support/betterment of their lives) to accomplish their goals, which, too often, means keeping greedy bosses at bay from stealing more of their money, their freedom, and their lives. sounds a lot like freedom lovers (i.e. participants in a democracy) to me.
b) I'm tired of the lazy (if not downright deceptive) practice of throwing expressions around and tagging on "like the old saying goes" (or worse yet, putting the expression in the mouths of well-respected people). If you want to throw around an alleged quote, cite a source- a name, a date, and ideally, a URL.
c) If you want to know what some well-respected people think of unions and workers' rights, check out Hellen Keller, Mark Twain, and Martin Luther King. Do you know where Martin Luther King was when he was assassinated? He was in a hotel in TN. He had just finished giving a speech in support of the striking grbage workers of the AFSCME Local 1733 union the day before. The powers that be tried to demonize him and them then, and when that didn't work, they killed him, just like they are trying to demonize and kill us, the working poor and our unions today.

To: Mary Kay Henry,
I have to admire your cujones for running against the hand picked choice of Andy the almighty.
My advise. Have at least 5 body gaurds 24-7. As a last resort have a GPS locator chip implanted.
That chip will be helpful, just in case you might disappear.

To: Mary Kay Henry,
I have to admire your cujones for running against the hand picked choice of Andy the almighty.
My advise. Have at least 5 body gaurds 24-7. As a last resort have a GPS locator chip implanted.
That chip will be helpful, just in case you might disappear.

listen here FatChick....unions are donw to 7% participation in the country for a good reason. People woke and realized what a dissaster it is to be in a union. Unions are job killers. they dont care if an industry goes out of business or move overseas. Their main goal is union member dues. They no longer fight for the little people, they fight for a bigger payday. the only ones stealing money from employees are the unions not companies. people get paid for the work they do. show me a person who goes to work and does not get paid. if I tell you that the job pays $10.00 per hour and these are your benefits and days off, you have a choice whether to take it or not. No one is forcing anyone to take a job. if you don't like the job, you go find another one. but no, instead, you hire thugs and goons to disrupt a business to the point in shuts down or moves somewhere else. The good things is that the media has cought up with the union thugs and they are now highligted on Youtube, Myspace and other media and internet outlets where people can really see the screeming nuts throwing things and slashing tires of people that really want to work.

Unions definitely had their place. HAD. That's the operative word. As with all power - corruption follows. Time to dismantle. Laws are now in place to protect workers. Time to dismantle unions. They are no longer needed.

Yeah, Union people are all communist. Like all those communist Union Fire Fighters in their red trucks. To really keep the red out of your constitution, make sure not to support the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, Police Officers, School Teachers, Nurses, or film/TV Actors or writers - All Union, all ruining this country.
/s

I wish these people .... UNIONS .... would all get on a slow boat to CHINA and take their idiotic salary/pension/benefits/can't-fire benefits with them .... they've bankrupted every single business and public entity they've gotten their greedy little hands on.

Unions...??? How could an intelligent person consider a labor union to speak for them? Unions use workers' earnings by way of dues obligations to support Obama, Biden, P-lousy, Reid/Shaft, etc. Does this help ? I can think and speak for myself. US labor history is so criminally embarrassing that I urge every voter to vote only for a candidate (from any party or no party) who has NEVER BEFORE served in an elective office. How else can we clean out the sewer of career politicians ? We need to return to a government OF the people and BY the people and FOR the people NOT of the mob by the mob and for the mob.

Mary Kay Henry cannot run away from the fact that she's always done everything Andy Stern told her to do. She's just another gutless Stalinoid - just like Anna Burger.
Meet the new boss - same as the old boss.
SEIU is not a real union!

Hey all you union bashers:
Who do you think advocates for America’s working class? The bosses? Heck no! They’re too busy surveying a plot of land in some remote offshore location. That’s where the plant they shutdown in your state will be re-located. And they’ll have a steady supply of exploitable workers!
Politicians? Heck no! They’re too busy counting all the dough that was “gifted” to them for making it easy for corporations to steal our jobs and move them to nations where workers are treated as chattels.
Here are the facts: Labor is the sole voice for working men and women. When those of us who pay union dues do so, we know that part of our dues will be used to advocate for all workers. We support increases in the minimum wage even though we make above the minimum wage. We support laws requiring safe workplaces even though we have safety regulations in our contracts. We support health care for all even though we have health care coverage. We also support our public school system, Medicare, pension protection, Social Security, the eight hour day, jobs paying family-sustaining wages, the right of all workers to choose union representation, and other community-building programs.
Wake up! Less than 2% of the households in the U.S. enjoy incomes above $250,000. Nonetheless, corporations and their political stooges want more laws passed that will further enrich the wealthy, while robbing our wallets. Today, the disparity in income and wealth in our nation is at an all time high.
Quit basing unions! Join one! You’ll be glad you did. Help the rest of us who are already union members help those who are not.

Posted By: Hey all you union bashers:
Who do you think advocates for America’s working class? The bosses? | April 24, 2010 at 12:00 PM

I, for one, would like the forward movement of SEIU to continue.Like him or not Andy Stern has given labor a much needed boost. Labor is back on the map and advocating for the littler guy. No, I'm not a SEIU member and I don't know Andy Stern. However I am a union worker/member and I can tell you that not for union power I would be working for little more than minimun wage and no where near the benefits I have.
Let me share a true story with you. In 2004, a contract year for our local/company, the economy was in decline and the company was insisting on concessions, crying dire straits. At the end of the line , the company got one big one; to the tune of about 500 million dollars over the course of 30 years ( about 16 + million a year). That's a lot of money where I come from; but it's only about 5 years of bottom-line-after-all-expenses-paid and current-on-any-debt clear profit to the TOP dog owner. One month after contract signings, the company CEO got a bonus (BONUS- not salary) of 25 million dollars for that year we had just finished. Although I do not remember my exact figures, I do remember that I figured an average wage of $35K ( most labor did not make this much even with substancial over time) times the number of employees (<>300-350 ?) at our facility; that 25 million BONUS was 2.1 YEARS worth of wages for the entire bargaining unit. Boy, we sure bankrupted that company, huh?
Union/organized labor, although down to the 7% level, is still the only real power the working man has in this grossly imbalanced capital/labor world. The laws we now have to "HELP" protect the working men and women from past AND present abuses are here ONLY because labor fought long and hard and in many instances DIED to get them. Unfortunately, due to the previous administration's lack consideration ( to say it politely) many of those protections are/were not enforced ( take a look at how watered done OSHA has become) While business/political tactics are often more sophisticated now due to some restraints those protections have placed on them, the story is still the same; business wants to make the biggest profits/aquire the greatest possible wealth for it's owners that it can; and the easiest and most effective way to due it is to keep for itself absolutely all the gain from the labor of others it can steal. Read your history, even Ancient history. Think "slaves". From Egypt's pyraminds to present day 3rd world/undeveloped countries, "slaves" . Ever heard of "slave wages"?; it's wages paid at so low a level that the working man is at bare-bones- week-to-week survival status..... Kind of like minimun wage-no benefits-no health care, only a little worse, no food stamps, etc,. You get the picture.
Without the unions and the hard work and sacrifices of their members, NONE BUT the powerful/wealthy would have any level of comfort and security. Many of us ( though no where near enough- which in my book would be everyone ) now enjoy some of that comfort and security due to organized labor/unions. We/labor built this country and it's wealth; unfortunately, the vast majority have not reaped anywhere near our fair share of that wealth!
Then there's this;
If some individual that belongs to a union acted deplorably at a political event, that is very regretable, but that individual doesn't represent the larger body of that union. Shame on anyone that insinuates or insists they do; that's politicing at it's basest.
Take a thought on this: Unions are not the ones bankrupting this country: a combination of mis- management of tax revenues and a reduction of those revenues through passage of tax laws and lowering of wages, by the powers that be to benefit the powers that be, are bankrupting this country. Again ... go read your history.
Kudos to: Edster, Tobs, FastCheck
and Hey, all you union bashers...
It's good to know you're tuned.
Enough for now.

This statement:
:The election would also mark historic firsts: Henry would be the first woman, and the first openly gay leader, to head one of America's largest unions." is definitely wrong. Unless you don't count the AFT as a amjor or large union, which would be wrong. Sandy feldman was the president of AFT and Randi Weingarten is now. Plus, Randi is gay and not in any closet about it.
Larry Mishel

Posted By: This statement:
:The election would also mark historic firsts: Henry would be the first woman, and | April 25, 2010 at 07:21 PM

This is crazy. Most Americans would prefer to have a union. I union is a good practical thing, so that we can have job security, health care and decent wages. If you leave it up to the bosses, they will only do what's best for themselves like mess up our health care system. In the years of record bonuses, corporate bosses aren't the ones we should be advocating for, but the working people of this country that are the first to get laid off while the bosses stuff their pockets. Let’s not let a few posters dominate the discussion here, there are firms out there that make a living out of destroying organizations.